Mary-Anne was born in London in 1953 but has lived in East Anglia since she was ten. Blessed with enormous energy, she fills her time with rearing rare breed Norfolk Horn sheep, enjoying the springtime lambing, as well as breeding golden retrievers and running a school uniform shop at the school where her two sons attended. Mary-Anne always had a sewing kit on the go and a friend seeing her aptitude for textile work, recommended that she went to a textile master class run by Jill Carter at Coggeshall. She then started a City and Guilds course at Chelmsford, but, finding it to be restrictive, transferred to the Opus School of Textile Art at Regents College in London. Here she was inspired by Julia Caprara to realize the creative potential in the medium and still does the occasional term with her at Opus in Harrow on the Hill.

Mary-Anne enjoys experimenting with all kinds of fabrics, papers and threads, always trying out new ideas, working them through in her head and working them through with her hands, pushing them as far as they will go, taking ideas to the extreme and never giving up. Through this work she has discovered new qualities of self-discipline and confidence.

Using the medium of textiles, Mary-Anne has created a series of works investigating the concept of rhythm. These pieces, inspired by Japanese forms and processes, explore notions of strength, movement and tension through the manipulation of materials. The “Rhythm” series began with her experimenting with one long piece of paper or fabric curled to create an organic form. In the process of repeating these forms and thereby making endless multiples, she completes the three dimensional piece. All of her work involves aspects of stitching, weaving, folding, tying or pleating, both by hand and machine. She prefers to work in white: “almost without realizing it” as it does not distract from the purity of form.

Appreciating the importance of presentation resulted in a method of displaying the soft, rounded textile forms of the “Rhythm” series in rigid perspex boxes to “catch” the shapes created. This dynamic tension between the organic and the man-made is central to her aesthetic and operates as a means by which she engages with the idea of opposites; bringing together the contained and the uncontrolled, the measured and the accidental, thereby creating a harmonious whole.

Mary-Anne is a member of the ‘62 Group of Textile Artists, which is an organization that promotes textile art in major national and international venues. She is an elected member of the Suffolk Crafts Society and the Society of Designer Craftsmen. In 2006 her work was exhibited in a selected collection by Pfaff which toured Europe, and she had two 3D pieces of work on tour with Art of the Stitch. Her work is exhibited annually in the Mall Galleries, London and it is frequently selected for international touring exhibitions.